


Beastie

by oOoElvenGloryoOo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:47:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22564249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOoElvenGloryoOo/pseuds/oOoElvenGloryoOo
Summary: Solas happened upon a Dalish camp just after awakening, and has a brief affair with a Dalish woman, leaving her with child. This is the account of Fen'dalen and their struggles and search for truth and freedom.
Relationships: Dalish Elf | Elves/Solas
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

I committed my first crime at the age of one. I pissed on the Keeper's lap. Mother said she called me an untrained mutt.

My second crime closely followed, then the third, the fourth. I was too young to remember them. They exist as tales Mother told me, like some make-believe creature wreaking havoc and delighting in it. What a naughty little Fen'dalen. I couldn't help it, it was my nature. I was a manipulative, devious force for evil. I wonder why I always felt so nervous. So out of place. And most of all, so guilty. 

The first crime I can remember, like real-person remember, I was seven. Tam and Bellana had been apple picking. They sat near us, spreading out their haul on Bellana's apron. They'd been quarreling, as there were five apples and two of them. I don't know what made me approach them. Partly I wanted so desperately to make friends. Mother and I were always on the outside, despite having a place to sleep, food to eat, a role to fill. Mother didn't chatter with the women while they worked. Anytime someone tried to play with me, they were ushered away with harsh whispers, over and over, until they just stopped trying. I guess I just saw an opportunity. I could make things even. 

I grabbed the fifth apple, and raised my small knife, ready to cleave it in half and solve their problem. The Keeper smacked my hand with an impressive force. "Greedy wolf! Do we not give you enough, Fen'dalen? Just like your father! Nasty little beast!" I never tried making friends again, which seemed fine by the other children. 

I had two friends, my mother, and a statue. The statue was by far better company. I'd press my forehead against the rough, cold stone. I'd run my hands over the moss like it was fur. This was before I learned the truth of my father.

Naturally I asked about father when I realized every other child had 2 parents. The answers I got varied, depending mother's mood. He was a lunatic. He hated all things good and wise. He'd be deeply ashamed of me. He had a round smooth head that shone like a pearl in the moonlight. He was a skilled lover, whatever that means. If only I hadn't came along, he's still be here. 

I'd ask things like would I be a mother? A father? A spouse? "Oh, Fen'dalen. You're my little beast, isn't that enough? You don't need to worry about such things, do you?" She'd pat my head, and go back to whatever she'd been doing.

But none of this compares to Worst Day. My last crime. The reason I'm out here in the woods, back pressed against a tree, trying so hard to "think invisible" while a group of templars passes some distance to my left. Nothing those  
Templars could do, not even the circle, not even being made tranquil, would be as bad as Worst Day. My backup plan, in fact, is to ask to be made tranquil if I ever can't take being me any longer. 

But not today. Today will never be as bad as Worst Day. Think invisible. You're good at that.

My 16th year came and went in the autumn, and I'd neither had first blood or been asked to hunt. I am not the same as my peers, that had became clear to me. By the time winter season was on it's way out, I'd accepted I must be something different. 

I could feel spring a month away, when I awoke on Worst Day. I ate porridge as I did every day. Did chores with mother, silent, counting down the hours til Mother's evening wine made her sleep deeply and I could be really, truly alone. Strange isn't it, to crave alone-ness amidst existing isolation. 

"Fen'dalen, it's your turn to tend the halla" Mother said, pointing at the feed buckets. I hoisted one in each hand and began my slow walk across the camp, to the outskirts where the halla were fenced. 

Two howls, several furtive glances, two mothers pinching their children's ears to stop staring. So not that bad this time. I had to stop then, to rest my arms. A stomach ache had been brewing for the past hour, and I'd doubled over a bit in pain. Keep going. Feed the halla. 

The halla were making a huge fuss, huffing and pacing. My stomach ache grew worse, it was difficult to lift the heavy feed buckets and pour it into the troughs. I did the usual headcount. One missing. I scanned the pen, seeing a hoof poke out from behind the makeshift shed where their tack and supplies were kept. Blood. Broken bone. 

My stomach cramped and I fell. The halla looked dead. I reached out to touch it, to confirm that indeed it had passed. "Please, try not to die" I'd whispered. I must have screamed when I fell, because approaching footsteps pounded loudly behind me. The halla jerked, bone mended, wounds closed. It stood. It lived. 

My legs ran with blood, mixing with the halla's on the ground. "Blood magic!" a voice cried. Rough hands pulling me up. They're not helping. They're punching, detaining, dragging. Had they built this prison cage just for me?

Eventually the Keeper came. She let me bathe and gave me rags like those who get first blood are given. "I don't think you killed the halla, Fen'dalen. But you are a mage, and we don't need another mage, do we? We're too close to the shemlen. It's dangerous out there."

"What, what are you going to do with me, hahren?" I already knew the answer. 

Her face like a mask of self satisfaction being held back, she answered. "We're going to shoot our arrow, Fen'dalen."

Mother came later. "Fen'dalen, it's time you knew. You must have noticed we don't belong here. You don't belong here. I don't know how to explain this. Your father, he was....strange. He came to the camp, bare-faced. He said things, terrible things. Called us worse than slaves. He wanted to destroy our way of life. Make us bare-faced like he was. He said the creators weren't gods. He said......well, he claimed he was Fen'harel. The dread wolf. Skinny little bald man, the dread wolf. Naturally, I called him a madman, but, well, we'd laid together many times by that point. We chased him off, to protect the clan. I am angry. I am angry that you came, that he left you inside of me. You're strange. You dream too deeply, you sit there, with those big violet eyes, looking just like him. Only thing of mine you have is my hair, innit?" She smiled the fake smile of a mother glad to be rid of you, finally. 

"But, Fen'dalen, what if he wasn't mad? What if our people are in danger and he can save us? You can save us? The only way to know is to send you off, right? Shoot the slow arrow. Find him, Fen'dalen. Find him or let the Templars make you tranquil. It would be a mercy to everyone unlucky enough to know you. You were always fed, Fen'dalen. Fed and warm. Remember that and be grateful." Mother left. I am thankful for it. 

I have to keep changing the rags. Is this first blood? Am I.....no. I am Fen'dalen. Beastie. Terror. The wolf's child. I will bleed and when they let me go, I will hunt.

This is not why it is Worst Day. That came next. It took seven men to hold me down for my vallaslin. They were thorough. Not a part of me remained unmarked in some way. Arrows and dots and eyes and a target on the forehead. The keeper joked that it will make great sport for mage hunters. I noticed someone chose violet ink. I like violets. I'd pick them every spring. At the time it seemed a small kindness, to have picked that color. 

Mother came, and shaved my head clean bald. "Now you have nothing of me, Fen'dalen." she said coldly. "I am free of you."

They gave me a cloak. A small sword. A bow. About three days worth of food and sturdy boots. Now I sit, against a tree, thinking invisible. I'd had four more bloods since then. My hair was growing back. My magic was growing stronger. I watched them leave. That direction. Slowly. Tomorrow. 

I fashion a bed of leaves as is my habit, and think invisible til I'm dreaming. I keep hoping to see a wolf in my dreams, but no luck so far. I'll give it a month or two more. Then maybe I will let the thoughts stop. 

Before the dreams start, I hear a voice. Maybe the voice is the start of the dream. I don't know. It's soft and deadly, like a grandmother made of edges. "You are Fen'dalen, my child. You are a weapon. You must not break."


	2. Home

I count the days by my body and the skies. Six months I have lived like a beast in the woods.   
Grandmother comes in voices and feelings. My magic came stronger each visit. It's how I survive here. Should I give a record of my days?

I rise at dawn. I burrow my hands in the dirt like roots and think water, and I no longer thirst. I think invisible and I hide, I stalk, I use my bow. At least I did until one day I thought death at the rabbit and had no more need for arrows. 

I spend my day in thought. I think finding and I think hidden. I wait and steal from the Templars and the human merchants. I take what I need, at first. Then I take what I please. I think death at them sometimes too, mostly on accident. You must be careful what you think and how hard. 

It rains, and I think dry. It's hot, so I think cool. And so it goes until finally I must think sleep. Mother said once father slept for a year. I do not know if that is true, she didn't know him that long, but still. I am careful not to think sleep too loudly. I am extra careful to not think about Worst Day anymore. Thinking becomes a sharp knife with a greased handle. 

One night I slept, burrowed against rocks, and I must have thought sleep just right. To be honest now, dreams and waking are much the same. Eyes in shadows but not mean. "Casually reshape reality" over and over and over til sunlight. In hindsight, this is the first time I met my father. 

The night after, Grandmother comes, sharper, with scales, claws scraping stone. "Your father sends his surprised regards, child." Hand on head, cold like death, warm like home. Now I see through the beyond and past the forest. Now I hear what was impossible mere moments ago. 

"Why have you come, wolf?" Keeper does not look at him. "For what is mine." He looks at mother. "And no more."

"The people hold nothing for their adversaries." Keeper looks at her knitting, weaving lies with her thread.

Resolve breaks. " What did you do!". It is not a question when you yell it. 

"There is a beast coming, wolf. Bigger and meaner than you are. Isn't that what you told us? You wanted to help us, save us, protect us from our pathetic existence? You refused us the slow arrow we needed. So we made our own, so to speak. Go hunt, Fen'harel, and may our hounds nip at your heels." Keeper smiles wrong. 

"When, keeper, did I ever say that I would save you?" Father is very good at thinking death. He thought it 25 times. 

Grandmother speaks in fire, but I am not scared. "Find him child. Find him."

As summer turned to autumn, I made myself a small home. I looked at the tree and thought down, then cleave, then boards. I looked at iron and thought break and heat and nails. These are the things Grandmother teaches me. I put them in a great pile and thought very hard of the picture of a house in that book I saw once.

It is done, but I am not satisfied. It is obvious and does not feel secure. I look to the hill here, just high enough. Move, I think at the house, til it's nestled in the side of the hill. I stand in my doorway and whisper grow to the plants nearby. 

It's been weeks since I saw what I could not. No wolves. No kind eyes in the beyond. Just Grandmother. 

No matter how you hide home, you are not hidden if you have one. I fill home with all the lovely things I find or take. I fill home with myself. Home became too loud, and the forest is not a good place for children. 

I imagine he was drawn to home by the bells. I took them from a chantry priest and hung them in the trees so they jingle when the wind blows. I rushed out at the sound, thinking dry and safe as hard as possible, expecting a great storm. 

The storm was a boy, no more than ten. My mind knows how greetings work, but my mouth no longer does. "Are you a witch of the wilds? But why are you an elf? What's on your face? What's your name?" Dirty face and gap tooth smile. "Father gave me cake, would you like some?"

Don't think death, don't think death, I scream inside. Don't think.....I look up. I still eat the cake. I press my feet to the earth and think bears. They carry away the body. It's better if they think it's bears. The cake is spiced with cinnamon and cloves. It is delicious. Today I learned to think cake. It was a good day. 

In what I think are certainly dreams this time, father's voice and Grandmother. "Are they possessed?" Father asks. "No, but they must possess themself or this will happen again, old friend." Grandmother is softer, no scales, no fire. How do you possess yourself? Tomorrow I will go into the city. I will not think death this time. 


End file.
